A month before Greenough received his helicopter patent, another was issued to Watson Quinby on August 12, 1879. A native of Wilmington, Delaware, Quinby had long been interested in aviation experiments and built many unsuccessful machines patterned after the mechanics of bird flight. For his last attempts at building a practical flying machine he turned to the helicopter, which he was confident offered the easiest solution to a long sought goal. Quinby's helicopter, with its four rigid legs for a landing gear, inclined body, and a long nose boom to which were fastened two small sails for a propeller, looked more like an aerial steed than a flying vehicle. The lifting propeller or rotor was also made of a pair of small sails, which were supposed to whirl around a vertical shaft, above the body of the machine.